The Crescendo
by The-Music-of-hands
Summary: When the world ends as they know it. -Elena-Reno-


_**The Crescendo **_

* * *

**Him**

It had always been a bit different with her, he liked to think.

They were friends, or at least she'd say so—or more like, she 'said' so—and he'd just cough or sneeze, or pick his nose, grinning at the passing women with a lascivious sneer gracing his lips. But she never said anymore than that.

Sometimes at night, he'd pretend to be asleep, and with one eye open, he'd watch her pace the edge of the lake, one hand cradling her face, and the other curled into a fist by her side, while she just stared at the shivering reflection below.

When it snowed, she'd still be outside, screaming to the stars, a letter in her hand that soon met its own death in the middle of the ice.

He never said anything about those times when he saw her, because somehow he knew that she had never meant for anyone of them to get involved.

So he stayed away. It was for the better.

Though at nights, he would still watch, and at nights, she would still cry.

And it would take everything he had just to stay away from her shaking reflection.

Somehow, leaving her alone, hurt less than going to be with her.

* * *

**Her**

There was something different between him and her then there was with the others. That was always what she always thought.

He hadn't said they were friends, but she never heard him say that they weren't either, so she suspected that they were. Sometimes, they'd start talking about the past, future, and those were the times that she loved the most. Then, they'd talk about lost loves, how he'd loved someone so much, and how they'd let him go.

When he talked about that, she never said a word.

Because what could she say to him that would make any sense? She never even understood herself, why would he be any different?

He couldn't.

Sometimes, when she went outside, mostly to apologize for the deaths of so many that she had been a part of; she'd glimpse back to their tent, and see him staring out at her. She never knew if he knew that she could see him, and she never asked. It wasn't her business.

Sometimes, during the day, she'd catch herself studying him and then, later, she'd catch the smile on her face as she watched her reflection swim in the water, without a care in the world. She assumed that life was different when one didn't exist. And the part of her that said "I love you" to him when he was asleep, wasn't supposed to be existent

So, it was in exile, in the water. And the only time she allowed herself to love him, was when nothing but a reflection seemed to stay alive.

During the day, it was easier to pretend that the quivering of her heart didn't subsist, then to see him and tell him the words she only told herself.

In context, it was easier to be alone, then to be left alone by the one who she never wanted to do the leaving.

* * *

**Him**

He'd tried to leave her alone at first.

But she'd been standing there far, far, _far_, too long and he knew by the miserable slump of her shoulders that she had been crying. He'd always been one to let them cry, but, he couldn't just let her drown by herself.

Well, there had been the fact that he'd made her cry, but that was beside the point.

"_God, you just had to bring up women, didn't you Elena? What with me going through all of this shit, you just thought it would be so damn funny if you were a bitch and brought it up." _

And of which she'd replied, her voice distant—which it always was when she was hurt, oh no, not angry, just hurt. He hadn't thought of what she'd been going through, after _he_ had died on her just like that. Oh no.

"_You think you're the only one with problems Reno. But you're not. Stop being such a spoiled baby and grow up. If you live, you die. If you fall in love, they'll fall out. If you try to be with someone, they'll leave you behind."_

So, three or four nights after that, they were still staying in that damn tent, just waiting for the fucking end of the world, he'd sat by her at the end of the lake, and had watched her fling scraps of a black and white picture onto his slumped reflection.

They hadn't said anything for hours, and when she did, he'd held her close, hand slowly snaking up to her cheek. He almost kissed her, _almost_, but she'd stood up, effectively pushing everything that existed further away.

She'd looked at him with a single glance that managed to say everything that she never wanted to tell him.

And as he stood up, brushing past her without another single glance he took out his cell phone, and dialed the so familiar number of a so familiar girl. He let her know that he'd received her message.

But, that night as she stayed outside by the water, he stood by the car, and not once, did he think about leaving to the arms of another.

* * *

**Her**

She thought about telling him.

But every time she talked to him, it turned into a curt nod, a frenzied 'hello', and nothing more than the tense formalities of an awkward partnership. So she wrote him a letter. Then later that night, as he slipped into the car and drove away into the city, she took one look at her words and threw them into the tarn, watching the green/grey of the water gulp the paper into transparency.

That night, she dared to look at herself crying, and when she did, she screamed to find herself so weak. He came back two days later, face unshaven, booze stinking perfuming his breath, and a limp to his left leg. When he fell asleep under her watchful gaze, she found herself brushing her lips against his, and to her fright, she found herself crying once again.

So, she took the car, and drove off.

It was better leaving regret, and then later having regretting letting it in.

* * *

**Him**

He had watched her leave, eating dust and tears for a late night snack.

He woke up two weeks later at midnight to find her chucking empty beer bottles into the lake, her rippling screams dancing in mocking circles in the water. Her hair was a blonde mop, greasy, knotted, and she was skinnier, blotchy.

He found a trail in the dirt, and just like Hansel, he followed, then from a distance saw a witch dying to be rescued from evil.

He might've run faster if he found that it wasn't going to just be that easy. But he didn't know, so he slowly followed. And found a crying angel with a bullet in her stomach. She fell, and he almost felt his vision tipping.

Felt his lips moving as she tripped, voice gurgling his name.

"_No, no, no…!"_

It was past that time. And in the middle of nowhere, just waiting for the world to end, two partners found that the car had run out of gas. And the gun under the seat was one bullet less.

He screamed, she smiled…

And when he told her to hold on, he looked at her eyes and swore to her that he'd never seen anything more beautiful. She'd mumbled thanks, and as they waited for the sun to rise—maybe someone would come in the next five minutes—he asked what her one regret was.

She answered gladly, but she was crying, and the lake was still shining, and…the beer bottles were at the bottom, along with the ghost words of weeks ago.

"_My one regret, was wanting to be with you…"_

He didn't let her go, even as she closed her mouth, even as she heard him say the same exact thing she had sunk into the ripples.

Beyond all that, he found that leaving her alone, made it so he left himself alone, and for the two of them, there was nobody else out there.

* * *

**Her**

She was sure that he heard her when she tried to articulate the words between bright red lips.

Somehow though, between his frantic attempts to staunch the bleeding, and his hand running, running, running over her cheek over her lips, the side of her face, his voice cracked, and suddenly he was crying, hands pressing against her stomach.

She was just glad that the gun could actually come in handy.

His hands were cold, either that or she couldn't feel them, and for that she was thankful too.

She left to the city for two weeks, drove back and had found the gun lying there under the seat. She'd held it for an hour or so, and then three minutes before midnight—_run Cinderella, run!!!—_she found herself touching the safety, and pretending that the bite of the steel in her stomach was the burn of his obvious rejection that he never said.

Then came the bottles, shallow caves of glass that deserved to drown, _die, die, die_, just like she did.

So, as he held her, she bit back a bitter laugh, and instead told him the opposite of what had been quelling inside of her heart for months. He'd blinked tears which fell on her face. That was irritating, because she couldn't feel them, feel his hands on her skin, and everything was just blank, and blah, and every touch and every word was filled with _nothingness_.

Damn, she wanted to feel something, but the only thing was the fleeting moment where her heart sputtered as he said 'I love you' a dozen times. But then, as soon as it was there, it was gone. And everything was a photograph, fading away, away, away, and slowly, sinking into the water.

She'd wanted to say something else, but nobody got what they wanted in that world, and she was no exception.

So, she was bleeding to death, leaving a trail of crumbs, and he'd found her with bottles and a gun, and a regret that she didn't mean.

"_The only thing I regret is not being with you…"_

He liked to think that she'd meant the opposite, but she wasn't able to answer, and she wasn't able to feel, and damn, she was _gone, gone, gone, that BITCH!_

For the first time, she wasn't able to say anything, and in a solitary platitude, she discovered just how lonely it was to die with unheard thoughts inside her head.

* * *

**Him**

He'd wasted words on a corpse.

When he told her he loved her, he'd literally meant every word, and for some reason, he'd expected to hear it back. But, she wasn't water, and she didn't reflect. She sunk, and at that moment, she was sinking, and there really was nothing he could do.

Afterwards, he'd let her sink into the lake—but he'd buried her in body—with the bottles but he'd kept the gun for later, and then he'd written a note, planning to bury it too. He'd written, "_I love you… I love you… I love you… I love you…-"_It was scrawled in chaotic chicken scratches, all across the paper, in lines and circles, and dots, and sometimes even in dissimilar languages. He'd thought about saying it while she sunk under the dirt, but throughout he'd been pretty quiet. He'd said 'goodbye', which hurt more than it should have. And then he wrote the note.

The gravel was still red where he'd cried more than tears.

He couldn't put it in the ground, he wanted to expatriate it, tell himself that nothing, NOTHING, had ever happened, and that she was just another partner. He wanted the letter to be eaten up; he wanted it to be destroyed.

So, he ripped it into tiny shreds, and threw it into his distorted reflection, watching the words join hers at the bottom of the lake.

The irony was, nobody had heard them, and nobody would, and those words would be ghosts, living a life that never existed.

As he watched them sink, he curled his lip in a grimace while clenching his hand into a fist. He could imagine her in there, so he spoke, wondering if she could hear him.

He hoped he could, just so she could see how much he hated himself for hating her…

'_Saying, 'I Love you' when you couldn't hear…you never could 'Laney…'_

He realized, staring at the person in the lake that would never exist. All those words before she closed her eyes?

For the both of them, it was just another wasted breath.

* * *

**Them**

His grave is by hers, just an overgrown mound of dirt. There are only two people there.

The boss and his bodyguard...the other one beyond his years in death.

Blonde hair and nothing…

They say goodbye, knowing that wasting words is wasting another breath, and then they walk away, leaving the two in the dirt.

The graves are never visited again, so they sit there under the ground, never speaking, and there are no reflections dancing on the water, because they might have well never existed.

There are two bodies that were once in love, and together they're camped out under the stars, just waiting for the fucking world to end with a boom.

They'll never know that it did.

_End_

* * *

_A/N:_

_I wrote this a couple days ago, when I was angsting big time. It really didn't turn out the way I expected, but, oh well, it turned out to be okay in the end. I suppose this is a bit of an Alternate Universe, but that's the way I had to write it. I love Reno and Elena. Yay!_

_Anyway, until next time, which will probably be a series or chapter story of sorts,_

_Feedback's a babe with sunglasses,_

_TMoh_

**_Disclaimer: I'm not smart enough to own it._**


End file.
